Second, since the start of the Great Recession, the economy has lost 8.4 million jobs and failed to create another 2.7 million needed just to keep up with population growth. That means we’re more than 11 million in the hole right now. And that hole keeps deepening every month we fail to add at least 150,000 new jobs, again reflecting population growth.

A census-taking job is better than no job, but it’s no substitute for the real thing.

In other words, 150,000 is the number needed to just keep stagnating rather than further sinking. And the rest of the 42.000 is less than the number of census jobs.

If Jake Tapper’s facebook entry is based on solid facts

More on job numbers — 65k of those new jobs are govt jobs, such as census, 231k private sector, including 44k in manufacturing

then indeed, the actual number of jobs created (not adjusted by technicality) is under the maintenance level.

The number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks and over) con-
tinued to trend up over the month, reaching 6.7 million. In April, 45.9 percent
of unemployed persons had been jobless for 27 weeks or more.

4 comments

Isn’t that the reporting period that would include the 600,000 overpaid census jobs? I know I have seen signs for the hiring and training workshops and all of that hiring and training was for the middle and end of April.

Underemployment is about 18% now according to the people who track such things – just heard that today!